cupcakes

22nd December: Day 70 of doing one thing as if I was living that day as my last.

I seriously love, love, love cupcakes, fairycakes, whatever you choose to call them.

And I love finding new cupcake shops. Even if they aren’t as good as the homemade ones.

Since I had to make up for lost time in New York, I bought five cupcakes today!!!!

First, I stumbled upon a festive chocolate Christmas cupcake in Dean and Deluca. I was about to visit my former colleague J… and after years of us fighting over which bakery was best, I had to pick this one up for her!

When I saw J, she had to send me in the direction of her new favourite: The Little Cupcake Bakeshop, a gem on Third Avenue in her new neighborhood, Bayridge, Brooklyn. They had so many amazing flavours that I bought four to taste. (I ended up chucking two after I took a nibble… I can’t believe I was that strong!)

The verdict:
Red Velvet: the best one. Moist cake, yummy cream cheese frosting. Almost as good as mine.
Peanut Butter: good frosting. Average cake.
Coconut: ok. Not a huge fan of the marshmallowy frosting. Average white cake.
Strawberry: yum. Tasted like my 7 & 8 year old birthdays! What a flood of memories within one cupcake paper!

They had quite an array, though not as many as two sassy Miami chicks who bake the likes of: I think you’re marbelous (marble cake), You had me at Nutella, Frosting Gone Wild….

My favourite cupcakes still remain the following, though:

……I can’t believe I’m revealing my recipe source!!!!

Red Velvet Cake / Cupcakes (from Cakeman Raven) with Cream Cheese Frosting (from Martha Stewart)
…V, I know you’re reading this… the cream cheese frosting is improved since I sent it to your sister for your wedding recipe book…

Cook Time: 30 min
Level: Intermediate
Yield: about 6 to 8 servings

Times:
Prep: 30 min
Cook: 30 min
Total: 1 hr 0 min

Ingredients

* Vegetable oil for the pans
* 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 1/2 cups sugar
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon fine salt
* 1 teaspoon cocoa powder
* 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
* 1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
* 2 large eggs, at room temperature
* 2 tablespoons red food coloring (1 ounce)
* 1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* Cream Cheese Frosting, recipe follows
* Crushed pecans, for garnish

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly oil and flour 3 (9 by 1 1/2-inch round) cake pans.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. In another large bowl, whisk together the oil, buttermilk, eggs, food coloring, vinegar, and vanilla.

Using a standing mixer, mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined and a smooth batter is formed.

Divide the cake batter evenly among the prepared cake pans. Place the pans in the oven evenly spaced apart. Bake, rotating the pans halfway through the cooking, until the cake pulls away from the side of the pans, and a toothpick inserted in the center of the cakes comes out clean, about 30 minutes.

Remove the cakes from the oven and run a knife around the edges to loosen them from the sides of the pans. One at a time, invert the cakes onto a plate and then re-invert them onto a cooling rack, rounded-sides up. Let cool completely.

Frost the cake. Place 1 layer, rounded-side down, in the middle of a rotating cake stand. Using a palette knife or offset spatula spread some of the cream cheese frosting over the top of the cake. (Spread enough frosting to make a 1/4 to 1/2-inch layer.) Carefully set another layer on top, rounded-side down, and repeat. Top with the remaining layer and cover the entire cake with the remaining frosting. Sprinkle the top with the pecans.

Cream Cheese Frosting:

* 16 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
* 1 cup confectioners’ sugar

Directions

1. Put cream cheese and sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, 5 to 7 minutes. Use immediately.

p.s. – I may act like the cupcake authority, but clearly these ladies are.

pink

21st October: Day 9 of doing one thing I wouldn’t have done if I wasn’t living that day as my last.

On Tuesday I was on a secret mission. There was an adorable little girl turning 7 who desperately needed pink cupcakes. I had twenty hours to procure the final ingredients, bake the little pink fairycakes, whip up some cream cheese frosting, pack them up and bike them over to East Sheen. Which would totally be doable, except that I was one week out from my event and expected to be leaving work at 11, with an hour to eat dinner and unwind, and then bed.

It would have been Mission Impossible if I didn’t have an amazing coordinator who heard the story, took a number of things off my To Do list, and ordered me out of the building by 7 pm to do what was really important. So I was off! First to Sainsbury’s where I found ridiculously exciting pink sprinkles. Then to my kitchen to fill cupcake papers with the yummy pink batter. And then through my drawers where I found a huge bag of pink confetti that my friends will be entirely grateful not to have flutter out of a care package or envelope. And finally, the next morning, down a quaint side street to a pink house for a very pink delivery.

Just like these, just with AMAZING pink sprinkles instead of pecans!

green

My fingers are covered in green. Green thumb puns aside, I am a proud liker of green. Not just because the word is trendy. (Nearly) the whole pantone range. The neon color that I used to think I would paint my first apartment kitchen in (to accompany my black cabinets with sleek silver handles). Where the Wild Things Are shadowy-nearly blacks. The kelly green-I’m Irish! color my uncle insists on always wearing – whether he’s at a family party or out at the hopping Connecticut pubs where other “Irish” are. And I can’t forget the color of my ipod that I heart heart heart.

SO, the fingers. Green cupcakes in the oven. My past colleague has been hounding me for cupcakes. For her purpose they’re not going to be St. Patrick’s day cupcakes but “muffins” that have been in my trunk for a bit but only got a little moldy…

soiree

So much misguided European thinking that cupcakes are the same things as muffins, I endeavored to set the record on Saturday. With one of my closest Brussels friends heading back to Singapore, I heated up my easy bake oven and produced a sampling of cupcakes for a Surprise Bon Voyage/Happy January Birthdays/Happy Groundhog Day While We’re At It – Party.

Southern Red Velvet

Coconut Almond

Death By Chocolate

Brussels introductions go like this: “What’s your name? Where are you from? How long are you here for?” Being just a one year-ling, I have had people say they don’t want to invest in short stay transients (but of course not me, they all claim). M was one of the first people I met my first Sunday at church in Brussels and she was undeterred by my drifter status – as she was to let her feet touch the ground longer than I.  Since then I have been a regular fixture in her swanky Sablon flat.

After getting over the surprise of being the one left behind, I can’t help but think that I am so going to miss our long brunches and five hour conversations. and the dinners that end in sleepovers when my car got blocked in. oh yes, the sunscreen smelling coconut tea, rice pyramids, chocolate covered spoons and boursin flavoured pasta whenever I was too overwhelmed to cook last fall. and maybe even her bluntness and ridiculous freak outs. but I guess skype will do the trick for the last two!

K (who dj’s on the side), S & J, my first arrivals.

U and T – who dared to bring red wine to my white flat!!

J & V and their amazing apple struedel.

U’s first cupcake. ever.

Two very special women.

Yes, special would be the word for them.

And the aftermath:

Not. Actually, this more makes me feel like a bad host by not forcing more wine!

birthday sweets

When I first started working at a European company I began receiving emails about birthday sweets. Men and women alike were announcing their birthdays and offering up “candy cakes” (false advertising! the base is just for display!), brownies and divine Belgian chocolates. Though psyched about the offer of free sugar, I couldn’t help but think, what losers… they don’t have any friends to buy them a massive cupcake and sprinkle some confetti between the keys of their keyboards!

Then again, my American perspective is also shaded by the fact that I had the most incredible colleagues ever in NY. Case in point: 2007.

Without my nutty NY coworkers in 2008, and faced with the Belgian tradition of “it’s my birthday and I have to supply my own sweets”, I spent my birthday slaving over my tiny “easy bake oven” to bring in decadent chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and milk chocolate shavings. A great way to meet people when I’ve just started working at this company…. next time, though, I plan to simply hand over a few euros to Marcolini to spend my birthday somewhere besides the kitchen!